A little history helps.
The virus started slowly, with a few cases here and there becoming an avalanche of warning that, without immediate measure, the country would find itself in the grips of a virus the likes of which they’d never seen. Health officials warned that, left unchecked, hundreds of thousands of Americans would die.
Federal health officials recommended that schools close, places of amusement such as parks and rinks be shuttered, and public gatherings, except those absolutely essential, be banned. Soon, states fell in line. Restaurants closed as a result of public health orders. All non-essential businesses shut. Grocery stores began demanding patrons wear masks.
To try to combat spread, the White House, Congress, and Supreme Court all closed their galleries. A movie theater in Portland, Oregon told customers that if they sneezed or coughed, they would have to leave.
While some of the population grumbled, the rebellion was just getting started.
So-called “mask slackers” vowed never to wear those gaudy face coverings and actively defied ordinances and rules that required them. Fights broke out and the confrontation turned deadly. In San Francisco, a man who refused to wear a mask was shot dead by a health official he attacked.
Officials had to defuse a bomb planted outside of a city office in which city officials were discussing a proposed mask ordinance. At another city meeting, anti-maskers complained that politicians were infringing on their liberty and freedom.
One lawyer started the Anti-Mask League, claiming no scientific evidence exists to show that masks are an effective tool against the virus. About 2,000 people, all without masks, attended the league’s meeting.
Law enforcement in some quarters decided it would not enforce mask mandates, and openly defied state requirements.
Even though most scientists and health officials believed masks worked to stem the virus, there was a healthy chorus of medical skeptics who believe masks helped spread the disease. One prominent physician in the hotbed of California noted, “The common use of the mask tends to propagate rather than check” the virus.
As the virus’ first wave subsided, citizens in Oakland, California burned their masks in a bonfire. But that joy proved to be short-lived. A second wave quickly ripped through the west coast, but citizens were tired. No more masks, consequences be damned.
Meanwhile, more people became sick and died.
Then, a vaccine arrived, pronounced safe by health officials but met with skepticism among a healthy portion of society and in the medical profession. One doctor asked heath officials to investigate a link between autism, bowel disease and the vaccine; Americans wondered whether the vaccine would really work.
This is all way too familiar. And those reading might wonder why I’m revisiting our Covid history but I’m not. Everything you read above happened during the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic; when it comes to vaccine hesitancy, I’m writing about the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine.
Everything old is new again, and in this case, it’s our behavior against any virus. You can find people who protested the polio vaccine or died as result of not taking precautions against the Spanish flu. I believe that everyone has the right to make a choice they feel is best for them, and that includes businesses making rules that are best for them.
So as we throw verbal grenades at each other at the local school board meetings; or insist that the freedom to choose only extends to those who get a vaccine (it doesn’t); or downplay the escalating number of Delta-variant cases, I come back to one thought:
We never learn.
Ray Marcano’s column appears every Sunday in the Dayton Daily News but is also appearing today. He can be reached at raymarcanoddn@gmail.com
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